The Darmstädter und Nationalbank was formed in 1922 from the merger of the Darmstädter Bank für Handel und Industrie and the Nationalbank für Deutschland.The Darmstädter Bank für Handel und Industrie was founded as the Bank für Handel und Industrie by Gustav von Mevissen and Abraham Oppenheim with a capital of 25 million guilders and modelled after the French bank Crédit Mobilier. It received a banking concession on 2 April 1853. It was thus the second universal bank in Germany founded as a company limited by shares , after the A. Schaaffhausen’scher Bankverein. In 1873 the bank moved its headquarters to Berlin, having opened a branch there in 1871. Further branches were opened in Stettin , Hannover , Düsseldorf, Munich and Nuremberg . In 1913, the Darmstädter Bank took over the Breslauer Disconto-Bank, and during the inflation years between 1918 and 1921, it opened many more branches across Germany.